As part of the ReCreate project, pilot projects are being carried out in four countries in which buildings that were initially scheduled for demolition were instead dismantled, thus enabling the recovery of precast concrete elements. In the second part of the pilot project, at least some of these reclaimed precast concrete elements from the Prinsenhof building will be used to create the structure of a new building.

In the Netherlands, the building to be demolished was an office building of the province of Gelderland in Arnhem. The building was called Prinsenhof and was located near ‘the bridge which in 1944 was just too far away’. As part of the ReCreate project the building has been dismantled by Lagemaat, one of the Dutch ReCreate partners.

The building in Prinsenhof consisted of two wings, one with nine floors and the other with five floors. The wings were connected by a core with a staircase structure which, in its entirety, consists of precast concrete elements. The structure of both wings is created by hollow-core slabs spanning of 13 meters between load-bearing precast façade elements.

Now all the structural precast concrete elements are stored at the yard of Lagemaat in Heerde, They are waiting for their reuse as part of the structure of the Knowledge Center that Lagemaat, as second stage of the Dutch Pilot Project, is planning to construct.